Relying on history for a little hope, Americans have shown the capacity to be both vicious/mean and humanist. Africans couldn't stand their viciousness during slavery, but then they did end it sort of. Jim Crow was a motherfucker, but then came the civil rights movement that couldn't succeed without many white people's support. Then Reaganism betrayed that nice move. There are other social and political issues in which Americans have had a vacillating historical record.
We continue to struggle to bring out the best in 'em. We know it's in there somewhere.
Charles
From: "Carl Remick"
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But what if the Truth is that Americans don't want to know the Truth? What if Americans consciously choose lies over truth when given the chance-and not even very interesting lies, but rather the blandest, dumbest and meanest lies? What if Americans are not a likeable people?
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Frank, who is at his best when he's just vicious, still clings to the comforting theory that Middle Americans are being duped by an evil corporate-political machine that subtly but masterfully manipulates the psychological levers of cultural backlash, implying that if average Americans were left to their own devices, they would somehow make entirely rational, enlightened choices and elect sensible New Deal Democrats every time. This puts Frank in a bind he never quite gets out of. Like all lefties, he is incapable of taking his ruthless analysis beyond a certain point.
The reason is simple. The underlying major premise of humanist-leftist ideology states that people are intrinsically sympathetic. If people are defiantly mean and craven, the humanist-left structure falters. "Why the fuck should I bother fighting for Middle Americans," they ask, "if they're just as loathsome, in their own petty way, as their exploiters, with whom they actively collaborate?"
Rather than grapple with that dilemma, the left pretends it doesn't exist.
This is why they will forever struggle to understand the one overriding mystery of why so many working- and middle-class white males vote against their own best interests....